The immigration of the first Bulgars overlaps that of the Slavs in the seventh century.

Of mixed Turkic stock (the word Bulgar derives from an Old Turkic word meaning "one of mixed nation- ality"), the Bulgars are warriors who had migrated from a region between the Urals and the Volga to the steppes north of the Caspian Sea, then across the Danube into the Balkans.

Besides a formidable reputation as military horsemen, the Bulgars have a strong political organization based on their khan (prince).

In 630 a federation of Bulgar tribes already existed; in the next years the Bulgars unite  with the Slavs to oppose Byzantine control.

By 681 the khan Asparukh has forced Emperor Constantine V to recognize the first Bulgarian state.

The state, whose capital is at Pliska, near modern Shumen, combines a Bulgarian political structure with Slavic linguistic and cultural institutions.

The First Bulgarian Empire is able to defeat the Byzantine Empire in 811 and expand its territory eastward to the Black Sea, south to include Macedonia, and northwest to present-day Belgrade.